That's all folks!

Posted Wednesday, November 5, 2008, at 9:33 AM

Well, it's the morning after a ridiculously long night at the courthouse and for the first time in a long time we have answers.

When I went to bed last night, aside from the Presidency it looked like the Republicans had taken several statewide offices, but it apparently turned into a country butt-kickin' somewhere between 2-6 a.m..

I've gotta say, I expected an Obama win last night. It just seemed like the stars were aligned for a big Dem night. What I did not expect was such an electoral landslide.

I would have never dreamed he would have crossed 350. I was guessing 290 making it pretty tight.

Stoddard County, however, made it quite clear that they didn't agree with the nation voting for McCain 70%-30%.

Regardless f how you feel about the President-Elect, a large part of the credit for his win goes to campaign director, David Plouffe. His strategy was to watch those key demographics and, rather than try to bring huge numbers from any one, he worked to gain about 3% on all of them over what John Kerry did in 2004. They did exactly that and it won an election. Simple as that.

The other thing I saw as a smart move was speaking to those giant crowds of 70-100,000 people. While McCain talked about how Obama didn't like town hall style meetings, the fact is, it was all part of the strategy.

I saw an interview last night saying that everyone who came in was asked for the addresses of five people they knew. They were then contacted and even a very low percentage of hits could result in millions of votes.

So, while the man does have charisma, I think it was behind the scenes strategy that really sealed the deal for him.

So, what do you guys think? How do you feel about last night or the campaigns as a whole now that oyu can look back on them?

John McCain's slogan "Country First" explains his failure to me. We Americans are selfish and vote for whom we believe will do the most for us personally.`

-- Posted by gardengirl on Wed, Nov 5, 2008, at 10:26 AM

Until the Republicans distant themselves from the extreme right wing hate spewing radicals and move more to the center they will continue to lose. I'm a Ronald Reagan conservative Democrat but there's no way I would vote for a party that attends church on Sunday and spreads racist rumors on Monday. If all the Republicans truly listened to John McCain's concession speech and followed his advice we can get this country back on track. God bless the wisdom of the American people and God bless America!

-- Posted by L2L on Wed, Nov 5, 2008, at 2:19 PM

However, the party needs to stay just to the right of center which was where Reagan was.

-- Posted by swift on Wed, Nov 5, 2008, at 3:31 PM

Obviously you failed to listen to the words of Obamas pastor if you are referencing hate spewers in the Republican Party. He is the only pastor I have ever heard call for the damning of America.

-- Posted by I.B. Le Truth on Wed, Nov 5, 2008, at 5:29 PM

Obama's pastor was ONE MAN, I.B. Forwhatitsworth was probably talking about the HUGE number of Obama critics (whether Republican or otherwise), who conducted that pernicious, vitriolic, hateful, un-Christian WHISPER CAMPAIGN on the internet and in private homes - labeling the Democratic candidate as "the anti-Christ," a Muslim, and a terrorist.

I feel that the flood of negative campaigning virtually backfired on Obama's opposition, far outweighing the negative impact of one unwise, hateful pastor.

-- Posted by goat lady on Wed, Nov 5, 2008, at 5:56 PM

Forwhatitsworth was the one who said the Republican Party needed to distance itself from the right wing hate spewers. He didn't say anything about the Left Wing Democratic Party so I did. It was pretty obvious to me that if you didn't agree with Obama or weren't of the liberal faith you were attacked as a right wing hate spewer or labeled a racist or religious fanatic. All I am saying is, look in the mirror before you start yapping.

-- Posted by I.B. Le Truth on Wed, Nov 5, 2008, at 8:23 PM

I.B., I can't imagine that you got any of that hateful email. As for my "yapping," I have never called you a "hate-spewer"! You have been restrained, balanced, and kind. If all Obama's critics were as fair as you've been, I wouldn't have had a problem with all the criticism.

Don't get me mixed up with some of our former bloggers who must remain unnamed.

-- Posted by goat lady on Wed, Nov 5, 2008, at 9:02 PM

And I am saying it went both ways and I wasn't really referencing what you said. I was saying a person should make sure that they aren't part of hate spewing group before they start blaming others.

-- Posted by I.B. Le Truth on Wed, Nov 5, 2008, at 9:55 PM

I would'nt have voted for Obama if he was white and his name was O'Reilly, Smith, or Jones. I just wasn't in agreement with him. And now I will pray that he will be a strong leader and that he is successful in putting us back on track again.

-- Posted by mythought on Thu, Nov 6, 2008, at 9:19 AM

The Republican party has a problem it has to solve. How can they embrace members like Powell, Hagel, and Guiliani without upsetting the Christian right wing? Bush was able to use 'compassionate conservative' to get elected and then just ignored the center; in the end, this proved to be a disaster for the party. The power went to their heads. They thought they could do anything for any reason ; i.e. outing a CIA agent just because her husband disagreed with them over IRAQ; spend any amount of money they wanted on earmarks (the bridge to nowhere). Our country is changing constantly and is leaving the Republican party behind. They have become a party dominated by southern white Christians only. Stoddard county is a microcosm of this. If they don't change they are going to become a minority party forever; they might control county and/or state governments but never on the national level. One other little secret; Palin is not the answer or solution. Obama would have defeated her by a greater margin than McCain. She has the rabid following of the Christian whites but will get little other support.

There are still some who think that Obama is a communist, socialist, whatever....if you go back in history they said the same thing about FDR when he started all the projects like WPA, PWA, and social security.

-- Posted by Wildcat67 on Thu, Nov 6, 2008, at 11:57 AM

The presidential election is over. As americans we need to pull together and support those in politics who try to do the "right thing". What we really dont need in this country now are the far left idiots like Keith olbermann and far right idiots like Rush Limbaugh. When good people listen to dolts like those two, they begin to believe their rantings. These two are just a couple of the "pinheads" that make millions of dollars spewing their hate. I suppose as long as we continue to listen to them it will only continue. One can only hope for the best.

-- Posted by bwkingdingo on Thu, Nov 6, 2008, at 12:27 PM

I heard on the radio that 95% of blacks voted for Obama and it got me to wondering if that tipped the election. So I checked out the various exit polls on voter demographics. They all seemed within a percent, and CNN.com's was the most complete. So I did a little analysis of the election based on the vote totals and the exit polling of voters using an Excel spreadsheet. A webpage of the findings are at, http://forejustice.org/md/election_2008....

The results are astounding!

McCain received almost 13 million more votes from whites than Obama did. Whites nationally voted 56% to 42% for McCain over Obama. This overwhelming support for McCain was by all income levels of whites and all age groups except for those 18-29. More whites voted for McCain in every state, so based on their votes alone McCain would have won the electoral college vote 538 to 0 over Obama. The degree to which racism wasn't a major factor in the voting of whites is reflected in Obama getting 42% of their votes, in spite of his reported radicalism, planned tax policies, etc.

How did McCain lose? Simple. Blacks as a unifed block voted 95% for Obama so he received more than 15 million votes from them while McCain only received 635,000 votes from blacks. In other words, less than 16 million black voters joined hands to negate almost 89 million white voters who voted 4 to 3 for McCain.

These facts completely obliterate the myth now being constructed that this election somehow shows the country has come together and moved beyond race based politics. Nothing could be further from the truth ... because Obama relied on black racism it to win. The only thing historic about Obama's "victory" was the degree to which he relied on blacks to vote for him because of his skin color ... while figuring that enough whites would vote for him for one reason or another to negate any voting advantage MCain would have among whites.

Internal pre-election polling by McCain must have alerted him that blacks were going to vote for Obama as a block -- and yet McCain did nothing to alert white voters that blacks were going to mass together to stuff the ballot box with Obama votes to try and overwhelm the white vote. If McCain had let whites know of the black strategy it would have given them the option if they wanted, to try and do the same thing. That McCain didn't do that shows his color blindness is genuine. On the other hand Obama would have known from polling that it was impossible for him to "win" except by relying on a race based voting strategy by blacks. Obama's strategy isn't surprising considering the church he belonged to for twenty years.

Other than blacks, non-white voters voted 2 to 1 for Obama. If blacks had voted for McCain at the same 2 to 1 rate as other non-whites, McCain would have won by more than 2 million votes.

I haven't heard a single pundit/commentator on the radio or television explain the truth of the election's outcome. However, it wouldn't be politically correct for any television talking head to report on the reality that Obama relied on black racism to win the 2008 presidential election. One can only imagine what would happen to the career of any television personality who tried to discuss Obama's racist voting strategy with the seriousness it deserves.

One interesting fact. Even with Obama's strategy, McCain still won nationally among all voters over 40, by a 50% to 48% margin.

My, my, isn't this just a super HELPFUL analysis of the election results. Yessiree, why don't we all just get our guns out and go kill each other in huge droves?

From what I heard, the only group who went for McCain big time were the over 65-whites. (With notable exceptions) Heaven forbid that I disagree with all your endless statistics, of course.

I heard a very interesting, equally-controversial theory today. This might give you something to chew on, FJ. It goes like this:

Doesn't it seem coincidental that this economic melt-down happened right in the middle of a presidential election? Is it possible that certain foreign (and monied) powers were sick & tired of Bush policies, so they tightened the grip on the economic arena, knowing that Americans would turn on the administration?

Why don't you play around with that theory for awhile, Mr. FJGuy? Maybe it'll keep you off the streets.

-- Posted by goat lady on Thu, Nov 6, 2008, at 5:08 PM

Wildcat I don't know what makes you think the Republican party is being left behind. Did you even look at the Did you even look at the vote? The actual vote means that in a room of 100 people 52 would vote for Obama and 48 would vote for McCain. That is not what you should call being left behind. The money that was spent by Obama compared to McCain and the special circumstances involved in this election should cause a person to realize that the next election could very well have a different outcome. Just because that is the way that you personally feel doesnm't make it true. You need to look at the facts. Obama won decidedly with the electoral college but the vote was a lot closer than that.

-- Posted by I.B. Le Truth on Thu, Nov 6, 2008, at 5:48 PM

Wildcat, FDR's New Deal and Johnson's Great Society programs were and are socialistic. That being said, most Republicans are now satisfied with most of these programs. Instead of cutting some of them out completely, it's either trim down or just juggle the programs around a bit.

Folks, I hate to say this but the Constitution Party is really the party with the GOP's earlier principles of small government, individual freedom, and free-enterprise.

-- Posted by swift on Fri, Nov 7, 2008, at 3:30 PM

GL, the voting demographics clearly show that McCain/Palin lost the election for one reason and one reason alone: blacks voted as a block for Obama by a ration of 23 to 1 over McCain. In contrast whites voted for McCain by a ratio of 4 to 3 over Obama. Those are facts, not opinion. On another blog I posted a link to the audio of random interviews with blacks before the election that showed they were happy with Obama's selection of Palin as his running mate and his opposition to abortion. Untold numbers of Obama's voters didn't have a clue about anything except his skin color -- and that was enough for them. McCain would have easily won the election if Obama was white.

GL, I can take it if you are upset with me for letting you know the reality that Obama only won because of his skin color ... and that McCain only lost because of his skin color. Reality can be a b****, which I find out every time I run out of gas and have to walk to a gas station.

Also, FYI GL, at least 56% of all whites over 30 voted for McCain, and whites of every income level voted at least 53% for McCain. Even whites from 18 to 29 voted 44% for McCain. One thing the facts show is that all the chatter about Palin being a negative for McCain is probably hot air by talking heads.

IB, you need to take a look at, http://forejustice.org/md/election_2008.... The election demographics show that on average in a room of 100 whites, 56 would have vote for McCain, 42 for Obama, and 2 for another candidate. While in a room of 100 blacks, 4 would vote for McCain, 95 for Obama, and 1 for another candidate. There is a race based gulf in the U.S., but there appears to be far more racism by blacks toward whites than vice-a-versa.

-- Posted by FJGuy on Fri, Nov 7, 2008, at 6:51 PM

You could be right, but it also could be his political party that promoted the vote. How do you think he would have done as a Republican. I don't think he would have done as well.

Condoleeza Rice and Clarence Thomas are probably pretty conservative and receive less than accolades from the black leadership. At times I have heard Colin Powell be degraded ancd called a pretty racist name because he worked in a Republican Administration, even though I have always suspected that he may be a closet Democrat.

So, would it have been the same outcome if he were a Republican?

-- Posted by I.B. Le Truth on Fri, Nov 7, 2008, at 9:01 PM

Well, I.B., this was such a good question. I'm disappointed that no one tried to answer it. (including me!).

-- Posted by goat lady on Wed, Nov 12, 2008, at 6:00 PM

Scaredy cats.

-- Posted by I.B. Le Truth on Wed, Nov 12, 2008, at 9:21 PM

Oooohhhh, name-calling, eh, I.B.??

The whole concept of Obama being on the Republican ticket is just so absolutely outlandish that I can't even consider whether he would have done "better" or "worse"! It's just something that would never happen - not in 100 years!

-- Posted by goat lady on Wed, Nov 12, 2008, at 9:29 PM

It could happen. If you look around you can find a number of minority members in the Republican party in very influential positions.

-- Posted by I.B. Le Truth on Wed, Nov 12, 2008, at 11:13 PM

GL, it isn't as outlandish as you may think. Keep in mind, when Obama began his political career he was a member of the New Party in Chicago that ran radical candidates under the cover of the Democratic Party, because there is no expectation of a person being elected as a Socialist Party or Communist Party candidate. Obama would have run as a Republican from the beginning of his career if it increased the probability of him being elected. However, Chicago politics is dominated by the Democratic Party machine, so that is the way he went out of expediency. (This worked out good for Obama, because at least in theory the Democratic Party is closer to his collectivist ideology than is the Republican Party.) Keep in mind that large campaign contributors aren't particularly concerned about a candidate's "public" party affiliation. They provide financial support for a candidate that they believe will deliver them the bacon. It isn't accidental that Obama has been provided with very significant campaign contributions from large financial institutions, etc. Lenin, a dynamic public speaker in his own right, said: "Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."

I think you are right IB about Condoleezza Rice and Clarence Thomas. They seem to be somewhat viewed as "Uncle Toms" by many blacks. The most vicious ideological opposition to Thomas was by black "leaders" and civil rights organizations.

-- Posted by FJGuy on Thu, Nov 13, 2008, at 5:56 PM

Check out Michael Steele, the former Lt Governor of Maryland.

-- Posted by I.B. Le Truth on Fri, Nov 14, 2008, at 9:46 AM

FJ, I guess Lenin had it wrong, didn't he? Haha - look who got caught by the rope! Soviet Communism lasted what - 72 years? That's a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things. Ran themselves into the ground, didn't they? It won't fare any better in the U.S. They might as well take down their signs. They don't have anything we want.

Corey Noles, staff writer for The Daily Statesman and Editor of The North Stoddard Countian, is the author of a regular baseball/St. Louis Cardinals column and also uses his blog to sound off on various happenings in sports. He also operates a weekly baseball mailbag column.